1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to canoe and kayak safety derived from mid-point sponsons that permit greater buoyancy volume than normal sponsons, for higher stability from both a larger righting arm as well as more buoyancy force. This buoyancy force is most important when people with poor strength or fitness, sudden illness or in capsizing conditions require a sling to help them re-enter from the water. Mid-point sponsons, attached by only one point, can be pushed away from the hull upon re-entry, further immersing the sponson for greater buoyancy as well as creating a longer righting arm away from the hull side. The mid-point sponsons attach to the canoe or kayak only at the mid-point of the sponsons, to enable the sponsons to rotate around the midpoint in order to reduce drag in waves and simplify attachment and detachment to the canoe or kayak.
A particular feature is permanent or semi-permanent attachment to the hull above the waterline to eliminate drag unless inflated, in which case the inflated sponsons are forced to immerse in the water as shown in FIG. 2 of drawings, creating a massive stability arm instantly by gas cartridge, or in two minutes using a two foot long oral inflation tube, whether inflated from the water or the cockpit. When not inflated each midpoint sponson would be neatly stowed in a small and rescue-emergency marked stowage bag or covering that would hold sponsons upward from the waterline. Such an arrangement ensures that the sponsons rest sleekly and unobtrusively along the hull side when not deployed, each protected by an emergency stowage bag or covering and the midpoint sponson attachment point to the strap, shown in FIG. 2 as slightly below the waterline 13, would be instead somewhat above the waterline to eliminate drag almost entirely. Likewise an attachment point directly to the hull would be above the design waterline to eliminate all drag.
2. Prior Art
Canoes and Kayaks are dangerous in capsizing conditions such as winds and waves. Winds can occur suddenly without clear warning. Canoes and kayaks cannot be paddled fast enough to escape these natural threats. Capsized kayaks and canoes are flooded and cannot be reliably rescued except by larger craft such as Coast Guard Rigid Inflatable boats, with large air-filled sponsons on a rigid hull. These are the most stable small powercraft in the world, and Coast Guards use them around the world.
Kayaks cannot be rescued reliably by Eskimo rolling because experts are left in the same capsizing conditions as before capsize, if they successfully roll up (after their bracing skills have just been inadequate to prevent capsize in the first place.) Most experts admit they do not roll with 100 per cent reliability since they normally do not practise rolls in all capsizing conditions, or they are paddling kayaks loaded differently from practice, perhaps using different paddles or suffering from seasickness or other ailments that are only a few of dozens of different circumstances that make rolls unreliable, such as capsizing conditions. Few experts are fortunate to roll repeatedly in capsizing conditions when water intrudes under sprayskirts with each roll, making kayaks increasingly less stable, and rolls less reliable. Kayak rolling is not at all possible for most of the public, let alone with any degree of reliability as required for safety. Canoe rolling is not normally possible except in specially equipped open canoes with massive internal flotation and young and fit experts highly practised in this refined technical skill. Only normal sponsons now provide reliable rescues due to normal sponsons providing high secondary stability coupled with the inevitable flooded kayak cockpit upon capsize. The weight of water is stabilized by sponsons, not sloshing transversely to destabilize kayaks and canoes, and creates ballast stability coupled with the righting arm of sponson buoyancy in capsizing conditions. Sponsoned kayaks and canoes are much more stable than before capsize. Rolling is practised by some groups with great enthusiasm and enjoyment, no matter how unreliable in capsizing conditions. There is a cult belief in the safety of rolls and ritualized practice, no matter how unreliable.
Some groups recognize that rolls need back-up safety and use a paddlefloat, while recognizing that paddlefloat rescues are less reliable than the rolls they backup. The paddlefloat rescue uses a float on the end of a paddle as a lever to assist on re-entry of kayaks. This does not stabilize the kayak upon reentry and is condemned as a xe2x80x9ccalm water rescuexe2x80x9d by the British Canoe Union and others world wide. The one-side lever recapsizes paddlers by rising on waves or submerging and tripping the kayak in waves, and it regularly breaks the most expensive lightweight paddles when used as a lever for a load weight that paddles are not designed to carry. The kayaker is not stabilized adequately while pumping out cockpit water, a long and tiring task using a pump that requires 2 hands through an opening in the spray skirt that attempts to prevent more water from flooding in. But even small one foot waves wash over any flooded, or loaded kayak and refill it. Calm water avoids this problem. Sprayskirts are awkward and permit gradual intrusion of water in normal situations apart from emergencies. Finally the paddle must be retrieved from behind the seated paddler and the paddlefloat removed in capsizing conditions. This is a precarious procedure and usually results in recapsize since the capsized victim is less stable than before capsize when a paddle was available for bracing strokes, to stabilize the kayak.
Open canoes cannot be paddled to safety while flooded due to insufficient buoyancy and stability, although optimistic and misleading instruction states the contrary. Flooded canoes without sponsons simply roll over when re-entry attempts are made. Dozens of well documented coroner inquests into canoeing deaths confirm this reality. Expert canoeists without sponsons die of hypothermia in wilderness areas after capsize, when winds build in strength without clear warning, or river waves flood canoes. Sponsoned canoes survive descents of large rivers without capsize due to high secondary stability in rapids.
Assisted rescues for canoes and kayaks are highly circumstantial and risk the lives of would-be rescuers in emergency conditions. Some experts agree to xe2x80x9csuicide pactsxe2x80x9d, not attempting to rescue one-another in emergencies lest the rescuers capsize too. Loaded canoes cannot be lifted and emptied over the gunwale of a rescuing canoe in capsizing conditions, any more than many hundreds of pounds of loaded kayak can be lifted out of the water. Even unloading heavy packs from open canoes will risk the group due to exposure from lost clothes, food, tents. (Such heavy packs are usually waterproofed and will provide interior flotation if secured within, since they do float and prevent the same volume of heavier water from occupying the space and sinking the craft lower in the water. Heavy packs cannot be retrieved in capsizing conditions without capsizing open canoes and all of these futile emergency operations leave victims in the cold water too long to avoid hypothermia. They cannot work hands after only a few minutes, although it may be hours before the body core temperature is low enough to kill. Even if these operations were remotely possible, canoes and kayaks simply reflood in the same waves and wind that have not mysteriously disappeared, in reality.) Sponsoned canoes and kayaks do not depend on removal of water inside but use it as ballast stability. All kayaks and canoes must have sufficient internal flotation in the ends or they are death traps.
All of the above information has been well-documented in major canoe and kayak publications, although not in a logically consistent fashion. Authors and instructor groups contradict each others"" emphases on particular safety techniques, increasing the safety risks for the public. The quick and reliable transformation of all canoes and kayaks into life rafts, that can reliably rescue victims from cold water (and even be paddled or towed, so stabilized, to a safe shore), is the most strategic and comprehensive safety possible. In comparison all other rescues are highly circumstantial, dependent on magical thinking that conditions leading to emergency capsizes have suddenly disappeared or that highly practised technical skills will be reliable, and even repeatedly reliable (although apparently not reliable enough to avoid capsize in the first place.) Sponsons replace irrational safety opinions with scientifically proven strategic stability that can be replicated anywhere, anytime, according to scientific method, in minutes or even seconds. Mid-point sponsons create a much more powerful stability equation than normal sponsons, to dramatically change the irrational safety climate that instructors and manufacturers have created, both unintentionally and from habit, to make money from repeated lessons. Instruction based on realistic paddling skills, judgment skills, weather reading etc, is extremely worthwhile. Specious and inconsistent instruction is confusing and ultimately kills the public.
It is desirable to create mid-point sponsons because midpoint sponsons can provide greatly increased stability, more than double the stability of normal sponsons, while permitting normal paddling with only a small drag penalty over normal sponsons (U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,196). Mid-point sponsons can provide a dramatic righting arm to permit a disabled paddler to step into a sling, using large leg muscles to get back into a kayak or canoe. Normal sponsons cannot provide as great a lever arm while still permitting normal paddling or sailing.
Mid-point sponsons dramatically, by simple observation, refute the unscientific opinions of some poorly educated xe2x80x9cnaval architectsxe2x80x9d who do not understand secondary stability; since the midpoint sponsons are not fully immersed except upon re-entry, and otherwise float almost entirely out of the water unless the kayak or canoe is leaned, whereupon the massive righting arm acts impressively, like the massive air sponsons on Coast Guard Rigid Inflatable Rescue Boats.
The unfortunate habits of safety instruction die hard, even among the most well-intentioned instructor organizations. The most powerful demonstration of mid-point sponsons is required, to change safety instruction. This most powerful demonstration would appear to be permanent or semi-permanent attachment to the hull above the waterline to eliminate drag unless inflated, in which case the inflated sponsons are forced to immerse in the water as shown in FIG. 2 of drawings, creating a massive stability arm instantly by gas cartridge, or in two minutes using a two foot long oral inflation tube, whether inflated from the water or the cockpit. When not inflated each midpoint sponson would be neatly stowed in a small and rescue-emergency marked stowage bag or covering that would hold sponsons upward from the waterline. Such an arrangement ensures that the sponsons rest sleekly and unobtrusively along the hull side when not deployed, each protected by an emergency stowage bag or covering, and the midpoint sponson attachment point to the strap 13, shown in FIG. 2 as slightly below the waterline, would be somewhat above the waterline to eliminate drag almost entirely. Likewise an attachment point directly to the hull would be above the design waterline to eliminate all drag. Clearly the instant inflation by gas cartridge of such powerful stability and seaworthiness, could not be easily dismissed.
The present invention reduces some of the problems of the prior art by providing much greater stability than normal sponsons (at least double) while still permitting normal paddling to safety with only slightly more drag than normal sponsons. Canoe and kayak mid-point sponsons attach to the canoe or kayak only at the mid-point of the sponsons, to enable the sponsons to rotate around the midpoint in order to reduce drag in waves and simplify attachment and detachment to the canoe or kayak, while also permitting a much greater sponson buoyancy volume without interfering with normal paddling to safety. This buoyancy force is most important when people with poor strength, health, or fitness require a sling to help them reenter from the water. Mid-point sponsons, attached by only one point, can be pushed away from the hull upon re-entry, further immersing the sponson for greater buoyancy as well as creating a longer righting arm away from the hull side. Sponsons normally extend from the lines of the hull along the waterline on both sides and do not float independently of the incline of the hull when paddled into waves, as is the case of mid-point sponsons. Sponsons are normally not as short as mid-point sponsons, but are longer and much thinner to facilitate paddling. Mid-point sponsons are much thicker but are also shorter to facilitate normal paddling. Mid-point sponsons permit a much greater buoyancy volume while also permitting normal paddling. The sponsons are connected below the waterline by material such as a strap that can be adjusted in length to fit canoes and kayaks of differing widths. The sponsons are connected to the canoe or kayak above the waterline by material such as a strap and two secure clips or snap hooks extending to kayak deck fittings adjacent the cockpit or a canoe middle thwart, in such a manner as to facilitate normal paddling of the stabilized craft in life threatening emergencies. Alternatively the mid-point sponsons can be directly attached to both sides of the hull near the waterline. The sponsons can be any buoyancy system including solid buoyant material, waterproof and airtight stowage bags containing bulky lightweight items such as sleeping bags, orally inflatable sponson floats, and gas cartridge inflatable sponson floats.
The mid-point sponsons, according to the invention consist two buoyant sponson floats, shorter and thicker than normal sponsons (U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,196). The sponsons are thick enough that they can be inflated by a paddler sitting in the cockpit of a kayak while leaning forward, without needing a long inflation tube to orally inflate from the cockpit. The sponsons are thick enough to inflate from the water after capsize without the victim""s head coming too close to the hard boat hull while orally inflating the sponsons. Alternatively the midpoint sponsons can be secured on the rear deck of a kayak, already inflated, or within an open canoe. The mid-point sponsons might consist of two sealed, waterproof and watertight stowage bags that contain only large, lightweight bulky items like a sleeping bag and stowed on deck or within as above, ready to deploy. Deployment of such sealed, already inflated floats, or floats made from buoyant material is normally accomplished from the water after capsize by attaching the nearest sponson to the deck hardware of a righted but flooded kayak by means of a secure clip or snap hook, etc. On open canoes the nearest sponson is normally attached to the middle thwart. The remaining float is pushed under the canoe or kayak to the other side and clipped. This is easily accomplished by pushing with an arm or leg, the buoyant force insufficient to impede this operation, although this same buoyant force is multiplied when in place as a righting lever arm. The remaining clip is attached to the deck hardware or middle thwart on the other side. Alternatively floats can attach directly to fastening points on the hull, near the waterline. In this case it may be easier to clip the floats directly to the hull of an overturned kayak or canoe, then gripping one float, lean back to use body weight to submerge other float and flip canoe or kayak upright. This is easier than flipping a righted sponsoned canoe or kayak over (i.e. capsize) because water ballast and paddler body weight are coupled with sponson righting arm for much greater secondary stability and body core out of cold water to avoid hypothermia.
The mid-point sponsons have great enough righting arm to be used with a simple stirrup or sling to assist disabled victims back into the boat. The mid-point sponsons may be clipped to deck hardware adjacent the kayak cockpit aft of the cockpit because the deck is lower and flatter aft to make re-entry easier. Mid-point sponsons are always clipped between the cockpits on a double kayak because this is the widest point of beam, (as is the middle thwart of any open canoe), to create the greatest stability arm from any given sponson float. Alternatively, mid-point sponsons may be preferred forward of the kayak cockpit as they may interfere less with paddling strokes, particularly steering strokes. Also they are visible to the paddler there and may be reached easily by leaning forward, to deflate slightly to decrease drag, or to unclip and deflate entirely, to stow when an emergency is passed. (Or when sailing, swimming, sunbathing, napping, snorkelling or swimming is passed. You may want a much more stable canoe or kayak for recreational uses, as well as safety.) The forward sponsons can be deployed from the cockpit by leaning forward to orally inflate, then sliding them forward and clipping to the deck hardware forward of the cockpit.
Finally the mid-point sponsons can be clipped to the canoe or kayak and then inflated immediately by means of a gas cartridge. This would be similar to Coast Guard approved inflatable lifejackets for people, but stabilizing instead kayaks and canoes in a most impressive, fast, and failsafe manner. And at much less cost than drysuits that are causing extreme discomfort to paddlers to the point of heatstroke. Overheated paddlers have died by not wearing dry suits properly zipped up, that become flooded with water inside and make it impossible to swim or get out of the water without outside help. Mid-point sponsons can guarantee that they can get out of cold water and live without risk of heatstroke, at a cost as little as $20 U.S. in large economies of scale, sponsons for every kayak and canoe. This compares to more than $400 U.S. per drysuit, retail.
A particular feature is permanent or semi-permanent attachment to the hull above the waterline to eliminate drag unless inflated, in which case the inflated sponsons are forced to immerse in the water as shown in FIG. 2 of drawings, creating a massive stability arm instantly by gas cartridge, or in two minutes using a two foot long oral inflation tube, whether inflated from the water or the cockpit. When not inflated each midpoint sponson would be neatly stowed in a small and rescue-emergency marked stowage bag or covering that would hold sponsons upward from the waterline. Such an arrangement ensures that the sponsons rest sleekly and unobtrusively along the hull side when not deployed, each protected by an emergency stowage bag or covering, and the midpoint sponson attachment point to the strap 13, shown in FIG. 2 as slightly below the waterline, would be somewhat above the waterline instead, to eliminate drag almost entirely. Likewise an attachment point directly to the hull would be above the design waterline to eliminate all drag. It should be noted that material such as a single strap running under the hull of a kayak or canoe near the mid-point cannot cause any significant drag at all, due to the fact that water is in turbulent flow at this point of the hull anyway, unlike the area of laminar flow.
The invention, as exemplified by a preferred embodiment, is described with reference to the drawings.